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Category: Andrea Aureli

Plot: hapless gardener is seduced by a mother and her underage daughter

Not all Gloria Guida comedies are created equal. Just like Fernando di Leo’s Blue Jeans (1975) before it That Malicious Age is another of these rather bland melodramatic and slightly tragic coming-of-age commedia sexy all’italiana exercises that are part and parcel in Guida’s early-to-mid seventies repertoire. Like any of the titles preceding it That Malicious Age has a proclivity towards melodrama but that doesn’t stop it from featuring more than a copious amount of Guida in advanced state of undress and a handful of risqué situations that it could easily classify as a regular soft erotic romp. Is it one of Gloria Guida’s best outings? That’s entirely dependent on what you come to these things for. What it does feature is enough Gloria Guida in the buff to satisfy anyone’s cravings.

Silvio Amadio was crazy about Gloria Guida. Perfectly understandable given how lovely la Guida was one of the prime Lolitas of the commedia sexy all’italiana. No, Amadio wasn’t just crazy about her. He was obsessed with her. He had filmed glorious Gloria earlier in the not entirely creatively stunted The Underage Girl (1974) and would do so again in So Young, So Lovely, So Vicious (1975). Unfortunately Guida didn’t reciprocitate his amorous feelings and Amadio descended into a self-destructive tailspin as a result. Gloria - whose shapely derrière was made a legend in its own right by Mario Imperoli’s Monika (1974) and Blue Jeans (1975) - was in a relationship with famed showman/crooner Johnny Dorelli and no on-set fling with a celebrated director was worth that risk. However Guida’s claim to cinematic immortality was to come in the form of Michele Massimo Tarantini’s La Liceale (1975) (released in North America as The Teasers) with Giuseppe Pambieri and a few years down the line with Fernando di Leo’s irreverent, subtextual and widely misunderstood satire To Be Twenty (1978) where la Guida was in company of fellow Lolita Lilli Carati, genre veteran Vittorio Caprioli and the late, great Ray Lovelock.

At behest of his high-strung (off-screen and uncredited) wife out-of-work painter Napoleone “Nino” Castellano (Nino Castelnuovo) takes up a gardening job at a summer mansion in the municipality of Portoferraio on the Mediterranean island of Elba on the Tuscan Archipelago. En route to the job interview Nino makes his acquaintance on a crowded bus with a stunning blue-eyed blonde who immediately starts flirting with him. Once at his destination he awkwardly bumbles his way through the job interview with the family matriarch (Anita Sanders), a bored socialite housewife, who instantly makes advances towards him. It is then that Nino finds out that the attractive girl he met on the bus earlier is his employer’s daughter Paola (Gloria Guida). Paola lives with her mother and absent stepfather and writer Adolfo (Andrea Aureli). As Nino settles into his new surroundings and starts to work around the house he is alternately pushed into compromising positions by the mother as well as the daughter. As the dance of seduction from mother and daughter alike intensifies things take a turn for the tragic for Nino when Paola spurs the advances of a Spanish fisherman (Mimmo Palmara) living in a nearby shack.

That Malicious Age is, of course, a tour de force for everybody’s favorite soon-to-be schoolgirl Gloria Guida. While rather demure compared to some of her other work That Malicious Age sees Anita Sanders in the habit of undressing in front of Nino for no particular reason. It has Guida’s Paola doing a sultry striptease in front of the window and her conveniently leaving the door to her room open whenever she undresses. A particularly suggestive scene has Paola giving Nino an implied footjob when the two of them are driving back from Portoferraio with the company of Paola’s blissfully unaware parents in the back. That Malicious Age concludes with its most memorable scene that sees Paola running around completely naked in Calenzano pinewoods. Since no Gloria Guida comedy or melodrama is complete without its share of tragedy her nude scene is a prelude to the movie’s downbeat conclusion. The entire thing is pervaded by tragedy as it truly is about the sheer dysfunctionality of the bourgeoisie. Nino finds himself martyred (his Christ pose when Paola falls into his arms drives the point home well enough) and ousted from the community after coming to nubile Paola’s rescue towards the very end.

The cast for That Malicious Age is an assortment of young new stars and respected elders in supporting roles. Nino Castelnuovo was a regular in comedy, drama and romance al through the sixties and seventies. His many credits include, among others, The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg (1964), Strip Nude For Your Killer (1975), La Collegiale (1975), Star Odyssey (1979), and The English Patient (1996). Anita Sanders was a former Swedish model of no visible talent that would retire from acting after That Malicious Age. Mimmo Palmara was a monument of the Golden Age of Italian cinema and a pillar in the peplum and spaghetti western genres. Palmera made appearances in, among many others, the Pietro Francisci pulp sword-and-sandal epic The Labors Of Hercules (1958) and its amiable sequel Hercules Unchained (1959), The Trojan Horse (1961), the Eurospy-fumetti curiosity Argoman, the Fantastic Superman (1967) and The Arena (1974).

Andrea Aureli was another monument of the Golden Age of Italian cinema and a regular in peplum, spaghetti western and poliziotteschi. His credits include diverse offerings as Paprika (1991), Adam and Eve Meet the Cannibals (1983), Lady Frankenstein (1971), Samoa, Queen of the Jungle (1968) and The Last Of the Vikings (1961). The most famous among the crew was director of photography Antonio Maccoppi who was a frequent collaborator of Amadio and lend his talents to Killer Nun (1979), Our Lady Of Lust (1972), So Young, So Lovely, So Vicious (1975), Nude For Satan (1974), The Underage Girl (1974), Secret Confessions in a Cloistered Convent (1972) and School of Erotic Enjoyment (1971) where Malisa Longo's breasts deserved a credit of their own.

Gloria Guida might not have been the cream of the crop of the commedia sexy all’Italiana as far as acting talent was concerned but her presence illuminated whatever production she found herself in. That Malicious Age isn’t especially funny or sizzling sexy although it never fails to find creative or far-fetched excuses to have Guida undress or lose articles of clothing. Nino Castelnuovo is an amiable leading man and his interactions with Anita Sanders and Gloria Guida are what make That Malicious Age work. It never aspires to the same creative heights as The Underage Girl (1974) and seems content to dwell in the same general sphere as Mario Imperoli’s Monika (1974) and Blue Jeans (1975). There are enough shots of la Guida’s legendary derrière and the third act introduction of Paola’s boyfriend Franco (Mario Garriba) is too little too late to be of any meaning. The Mimmo Palmara subplot feels like an afterthought and the bittersweet conclusion only seems there to have the expected level of tragedy that apparently no Gloria Guida comedy is complete without. It’s competent and enjoyable enough, but Guida had yet to manifest actual acting talent in Fernando di Leo’s To Be Twenty (1978).